Thursday 12 August 2010

Stinging nettles


Well the 33 seconds of yesterday's trip home displayed above were possibly the most exciting and bizarre of the week since Monday. A near miss, cycle on cycle action and stinging nettles to add spice.

There I was turning right off Chickerell road onto Prince of Wales road (A steepish pull) holding a strong road position - mostly because there was no traffic coming; the lights here alternate east/west traffic along Chickerell road because the bridge is single track. Anyway back on track as it were... I turn left off the road onto the feeder path for the Rodwell trail and, as you can see, I am forced to ditch in the nettles by a rider coming down the wrong side of the path. He did yell a brief "sorry mate!" over his shoulder. If you are in anyway concerned about the nettles - they only got my left calf a bit and weren't hurt at all. Leg itched a bit though!

The Rodwell trail is like the wild west - pedestrians (who should be off it when I am using it - after all I share it with them for the rest of the day) everywhere, dogs on invisible black leads, dogs off the lead, drunken people, Bike Shaped Objects, Tiny bikes, Hoodie propelled bikes, pushchairs etc. so I expect to be wary but, as in this case I am travelling uphill at a whole 2 mph, I feel the downhill racer could have at least been on the correct side of the path!

Your opinion may be different, dear reader, but really is it unreasonable to expect people to at least try to be on the right side of the path - rather than being wrong by riding on the right?

Wednesday 11 August 2010

Overtake if you must....


Well here I am back again after a long absence... an absence for which I have no real excuses other than nothing exciting happened when riding the Orca and also I kept forgetting to either attach the camera to the helmet or to charge the camera so that even though it may have been attached it was useless.

Today I was proceeding in a southerly direction down Portland road when I became aware of a White Van in the process of over taking. Actually I was aware of him before he started his manoeuvre by use of my bar end mirror, but anyway...

I was tanking down hill at a fairly leisurely 23 mph (37kph as indicated on my incredibly accurate bike computer) and only 7 mph under the speed limit I guess an overtake was deemed necessary by WVM.

Having been cycling on the roads for 32 years now I thought I had encountered every sort of overtaking style (motor vehicle vs bike) but today this WVM added another to the list... overtake then stay just in front of the bike - a style not uncommon in car on car overtakes especially on motorways) but in this instance even more surprising because the road was completely clear in front of us - save a set of traffic lights.

Oh well - none so queer as folk, they say, and definitely none so queer as folk in white vans!